Sedna Prewitt sighed, knowing she had ended thousands of lives with a few keypresses. At least it would get the point across. Sedna calmly walked to the safe in the corner of her office, rotating the mechanism until the lock opened with a satisfying thud. She swung open the safe door, revealing a rusted toolbox. She picked it up, then closed the safe door. Sedna walked out of her office. It was odd, she thought; a weight had been lifted from her chest, and yet her stomach felt like it was sinking. It didn't matter too much. She inhaled sharply as she approached the exit of Site-76.

Site Director Prewitt was waved past security without complaint.

Sedna walked out the front door towards the drab blue car on the opposite side of the road. Her pair of contacts sat inside it: Gamut Rückfall was reading her newspaper, resting it against the steering wheel; Krav Lichtenfield sat in the passenger side, chewing strawberry gum and rubbing his stubble. Sedna opened one of the passenger doors, eased herself down into the leather seat, then rested her toolbox on her lap. Gamut folded her newspaper, placed it on the dashboard, and started accelerating down the road. Krav turned around and leaned across, grinning and offering Sedna a stick of gum. She took it, unwrapped it, then placed it in her mouth. Krav's grin widened even more.

The Administrator contemplated the readout on his screen. A two hour window of non-zero reversion potential… plenty of time to address the situation. There had been worse breaches in the past, by far, and for worse reasons.

The phone next to the Administrator rang, and he picked it up. O5-4 was the one who would have to deal with the situation. Time was of the essence; there was no time for a council vote, so O5-4 made a direct petition. The Administrator listened to the requests, agreeing to all of them one by one. This wasn't the worst that the Administrator had seen, but it was the worst that O5-4 had ever needed to deal with.

Sedna Prewitt had been capable of doing much worse than this, and for that the Administrator was pleased and disappointed in equal measure.

A man was looking out a window.

The birds were flying, the sun was shining, and everything was right with the world. Everything was okay, everything was alright, there was nothing to worry about. He heard a car screech off the side of a road, then the crunch of metal against brick below his office. He heard people shouting, screaming, crying, and then the shouting stopped.

Everything was perfectly fine.

"Hello?"

A middle-aged man was talking to him on a laptop screen. Said laptop was sitting in the lap of the man who was not on the laptop screen. The man on the laptop screen started talking again.

"You seem to be forgetting things every time we stop talking."

The man that was not on the laptop stared blankly. He started to talk, then coughed; he welled up some spit in his throat, then tried again.

"What?"

"Something is heavily affecting your concentration."

"Who are you?"

"Who indeed. Perhaps a more pertinent question: who are you?"

The man who was not on the laptop screen paused for a moment to think. Who was he? It didn't seem too important. It wasn't that he didn't remember. He knew that he knew who he was; on realising this, safe in the conclusion that he was aware of who he was on some deeper level, he refused to drag it up into his active consciousness. The man who was not on the laptop screen was struck by a profound, zenlike apathy. Easier by far to mirror the man in the laptop screen's words than to think his own thoughts.

"Who indeed."

"Well, for convenience's sake, let's call you Kevin."

"Why Kevin?"

"Because that's your name."

"Ah."

"As for me, you can call me 315. Ringing any bells?"

Kevin stopped paying attention.

"Kevin?"

Kevin's gaze started drifting from the man in the laptop screen. 315 clicked his fingers loud enough for the laptop's speakers to clip.

Professor Thaddeus Xyank was annoyed. Not at the fact that a space the size of Seattle - indeed, a space that was Seattle - had been temporally corrupted. He was annoyed that nobody had told him that it was going to happen. The research potential into temporal corruption seemed enormous. This was mostly because Xyank still didn't understand what temporal corruption actually meant.

From: O5-4 (1.1.861.291|artni_3ujk2bv6j3b5.4-5o#1.1.861.291|artni_3ujk2bv6j3b5.4-5o)
To: Thad Xyank (1.1.861.291|artni_83028fo3b4.knayxt#1.1.861.291|artni_83028fo3b4.knayxt)
Date: [FIELD EMPTY]
Subject: Temporal Corruption
Content:
Seattle has been temporally locked as per TS-7 containment protocols. However, the Type B XACTS stationed around the breach have malfunctioned, resulting in temporal corruption. Considering your paper regarding hypothetical use of a Type B XACTS array to introduce temporal corruption, you are the person most suited to address the situation. This should also present a valuable opportunity to test the accuracy of your theories.

You will be transported to Seattle within the next twenty minutes.

Xyank hadn't written the paper that O5-4 was referring to yet. No, scratch that; he hadn't even designed a Type B XACTS yet. On the short trip to Seattle, Xyank thumbed through both the aforementioned paper, as well as the specifications document for the Type B.

Halfway through the latter, Professor Xyank saw the memetic trigger he was going to place within the paper. He felt his arms seize and slump, damned whatever reason he was going to have for putting it in there, then fell unconscious in the back of the unmarked van.

Sedna Prewitt watched her watch tick down.

90 minutes remained until Seattle was irrecoverable.

Gamut had taken them out from the city centre, through the residential areas, and out into the "semi-residential" zones. They had reached the strange sort of point at which a city seems to lose its steam; where more of the land is used for roads than housing, and more still is simply open grassland, as yet unclaimed by urban sprawl. Krav was staring out the windows, chewing his gum to calm his nerves. Sedna couldn't take her eyes off her watch until Gamut broke her concentration.

"We're here."

Gamut slowly decelerated, rolled to a stop besides a well-forested area, then pulled up the handbrake. She unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car, momentarily stretching her arms and legs. Krav opened the glove compartment, pulled out a small packet of papers held together with a thick elastic band, then got out himself. He turned, opening Sedna's door for her, and gesturing with a smile.

"Out we get, Miss Prewitt. Watch your step, 'n all that."

Sedna grabbed the handle of the rusty toolbox and stood up outside the door.

"What now, then?"

Gamut answered as she walked around the front of the car, running her hands through her short pink hair.

"We have a five minute walk through these trees, then we hit an open field. Our plane's waiting there."

Sedna nodded. Gamut pulled a compass from her pocket, looking at it intensely; Sedna stared, confused.

"So it's just past these trees?"

"Yes, but we need this to get through. Walking in a straight line can be difficult in the wrong places, if you get my gist."

Gamut tapped the side of her nose, then started walking into the greenery. Krav gestured for Sedna to follow behind, then fell in at the back of the queue. They continued to walk; Sedna caught herself erring from Gamut's lead twice, involuntarily drifting from the intended path. After five minutes, as expected, they exited into a wide clearing. A small white aeroplane sat in the middle of a short paved runway; the trio walked up to the side of it. Gamut pulled a key from her pocket, pushed it into the small hatch on the side, then swung it open. Krav stepped in first, offered a helping hand to Sedna, and Gamut closed the door behind her. Gamut walked through to the one-pilot cockpit, having to crouch slightly to get around; Krav and Sedna sat in the two seats behind, buckling up their harnesses. Sedna rested the rusty toolbox in front of her, then queried Krav:

"So, where now?"

"Next stop, London. Too much Foundation presence in America, much safer in England."

"And we're going there in this?"

"Yes. Were you expecting a commercial flight?"

"Well, it's just a bit small."

"Small enough not to be detected, even if we weren't already shielded in a hundred different ways."

"I see."

Ex-Site Director Prewitt looked back at her watch, feeling her seat vibrate as the engines started up. Gamut started to accelerate. The small plane hurtled down the runway, then lifted off the ground. Sedna felt her stomach drop from more than mere airsickness.